With graduation ceremonies having just been held and Los Gatos High School seniors scattering, classmates may fear they’ll lose contact with their friends.

Thanks to the hard work of the school’s Alumni Association, though, there’s an easy way to stay in touch: The new online alumni directory is now available, conveniently located on the Los Gatos High School website.

The new directory—which will soon provide contact info for nearly 25,000 former Wildcats—is the result of yeoman effort on the part of the Los Gatos High School Alumni Association.

“The process to get where we are now has taken 10 years,” noted Chris Miller, president of the LG Alumni Association’s board of directors. “The board has worked really hard in the past year to make this a reality, and now for the first time ever we have a comprehensive, up-to-date list of Los Gatos High School grads that will serve the community.”

Miller said the online compendium will serve many purposes. Naturally, having the most current contact information for graduates helps with the fundraising efforts that continue to be a challenge in the current economy. But Miller and the board also believe that the directory will help to nurture former classmates’ sense of community.

“This is a great opportunity for alumni to know what’s going on with the school, and for us to communicate with them,” Miller said. “For example, we love working with the Los Gatos Athletic Association every year on the Hall of Fame event. If someone is nominated from a particular graduating class, then everyone from that class who’s registered in the directory can be made aware of that, and they can attend the ceremony.”

Those alerts, Miller adds, can be made through the directory’s special features, which include separate class pages, a blog, and in the future, an alumni store. Also planned are links that will enable online donations and membership payments. All of these capabilities will be available free on the LGHS website—something Miller and his board hope will encourage alumni participation.

“Anyone can use it; they just have to provide an e-mail address, which will be verified by the Los Gatos High School webmaster. Then the alum can register or update any information. If someone wants to do a search, they can do so based on our search criteria, which includes first and last name, maiden name, graduating year and city, county and state where the person now lives,” Miller said.

Those wishing to contact a former classmate also can send a message through the directory’s system, without revealing personal information on either side, Miller added. “You’ll just get an e-mail that someone is trying to contact you, but your e-mail address won’t be shared with anyone.”

The current alumni directory, which is available through another online provider, will be discontinued at the end of June. Then the database that powers the listings will be served permanently through the Los Gatos High School website. By mid-May nearly 19,000 names reflecting the last decade of graduates had been imported into the database. The Class of 2010 also has been contacted, with the hope that its members will register as well.

Miller said the Alumni Association received crucial assistance from several current and former members of the high school staff and administration. “Brendan Nystedt, their webmaster, did all of the programming, putting in a ton of hours to make this work. [Los Gatos principal] Markus Autrey also has been extremely supportive of the Alumni Association, as well as the New Millennium Foundation under Joanne Rogers,” Miller said.

To access the Los Gatos High School Alumni Directory, visitwww.lghs.net, then scrolling down to the lower right-hand corner of the home page. For more information contact alumni@lghs.net, or call Miller at 408.395.7949.